Organizing Your Shooting Practice – I
Start the new year off right with this easy to shoot, easy to practice drill.
The NRA online website Shooting Illustrated has published the first of my series of articles about using the framework of State Level CCW Qualification Courses as marksmanship drills. The series is geared toward the new gunowner audience but even experienced shooters can gain something from it.
https://www.shootingillustrated.com/content/organizing-your-shooting-practice/
The philosophy behind the series is to give new gunowners at least a small idea of what they can do to gain some degree of proficiency with their guns. While “Do the work” has become a mantra in the training community in the 21st Century; what trainers mean by that is simply unrealistic in the context of most people’s busy lives. The goal of the Organizing Your Practice series is ‘Do Something.’ As my late colleague Paul Gomez said, “Shoot Yor Guns.”
Each of the monthly sessions can be accomplished by going to an indoor range for an hour, buying one box of ammunition, and getting in a short but meaningful practice session. If a shooter doesn’t even shoot the whole Session of the article; that’s okay. At least they know what it’s like when the gun goes off and what the sound of gunfire and the feel of recoil are like. The majority of adults are visual learners. For them, there’s also a YouTube Short about the session at https://youtu.be/AV4HSnAj_rw?si=pSbB0lNG5jILyrmM.
The purpose of the video isn’t really to provide a guide to the session. It’s mostly to show what real shooting looks like as opposed to the foolishness that is usually seen on TV and movies. Although Jennifer Garner frequently looked great on Alias, the shooting was always utterly ridiculous.
As a guide for staying on task at the range, I created an Aide-mémoire (Cheat Sheet) that can be folded up and brought along in a pocket.
If you would like to download the Cheat Sheet and/or cool Upper and Middle Target Sheets, they’re attached.
Attachments
- MCOLES Cheat Sheet
- Upper Target Sheet
- Middle Target Sheet
Since gear is always of interest, the demonstration for this article was done with a Taurus 856 .38 Special snub nose revolver and Blazer ammunition. The laser wasn’t used during the shooting. Reloads were done using the Zeta6 K-Pak2 Speedloader https://zetasix.com/product/k-pak2/ equipped with a Retention ring https://retentionring.com/ .
Very Good Shooting and Enjoy!
Downrange Incident During Home Invasion
From the Armed Citizen http://graphics.nra.org/ac/ac-138.html this month.
Authorities say a man opened fire on a suspected burglar who attacked his wife at their home
Deputies said [the intruder] encountered a 74-year-old woman inside the residence and ‘began to struggle with her physically.’ Her husband heard her screams and saw her struggling with Jackson. The man then retrieved his firearm and shot Jackson in the right shoulder.
This is what I call a ‘downrange incident.’ I.e., there’s an innocent party downrange and in close proximity to the attacker. Incidents where close range precision is required are more common than is realized.
A downrange drill is part of all my private sessions above the beginner level. The shooter has only one round in the pistol. Two IDPA targets downrange with one placed directly to the side of the -0 zone. The shooter can advance to any distance they feel they can make a -0 hit, either head or body, on the first shot without hitting the hostage. Even experienced shooters tend to get somewhere within Social Space (4-12 feet).
It doesn’t have to be an IDPA match scenario
but practicing the ‘downrange shot’ occasionally is worthwhile.
The Cost of Killing Redux
#fridayfundamentals
I’ve written about the Cost of Killing several times. https://thetacticalprofessor.net/2016/07/24/the-cost-of-killing/ Even to someone who is involved but not the shooter, it’s incredibly hard on people.
Here’s yet another sad example.
I-Team: St. Louis family demands answers after double homicide case went from murder to self-defense
Note that the story begins with “Eric and Arron Smith were gunned down following a domestic violence incident,” as if they were innocent victims of a senseless shooting.
A précis of the incident is that a violent domestic abuser and his violent brother, Eric and Arron Smith, were shot and killed in self-defense by the victim’s sister’s boyfriend. The sister had stashed the abuser’s pistol in her purse when the rescue party arrived. The abuser’s brother arrived with his own pistol, beat one of the party with it, and gunpointed the rescuers. At that point, the victim’s sister took the abuser’s pistol out of her purse and gave it to her boyfriend. The boyfriend then shot and killed both the abuser and his gunpointing brother. The boyfriend was arrested, charged with Murder, and placed in Jail with no bond.
The prosecutor subsequently hid evidence from the shooter’s defense attorney. When this was uncovered by a Grand Jury and judge, the charges were reduced to Manslaughter, and the shooter was released on bond. Fourteen months later, shortly before trial, all charges were dropped.
The saddest part of the entire affair is that a few days before the trial was to begin, the sister who gave the gun to her boyfriend to protect the rescuers committed suicide. The shooter’s defense attorney didn’t want to speculate why she did that.
“We don’t know what occurred that led her to take her own life.”
Having been a party to the killing of two men she knew and then having to recount all the details in court is a good guess as to why.
“We weren’t trying to start any problems, we were just trying to help my sister,” she told the POlice.
RIP Kaylee Castro
Pocket Carry
Now that cold weather is upon us, pocket carry in an overcoat pocket has some advantages. Pocket carry has both upsides and downsides.
Upsides
- It’s far easier to access a gun in a coat pocket than to undo the coat and draw a holstered pistol. This is especially true when you’re seated in a vehicle with a seat belt on.
- You can put your hand on your gun as soon as you perceive trouble or even walk around with your hand on your gun in general.
- A draw from the pocket, starting with hand on gun, is faster for most people than drawing from a concealed holster.
Downsides
- Pocket carry usually requires a smaller and more compact handgun.
- A separate pocket holster is advisable.
- You may be wearing gloves.
- If you come in from outside and have to hang up your coat in an unsecured area, you’ll need to do something with the pocket pistol to secure it.
- The pocket draw is a little different than drawing from a belt holster.
- Said smaller and more compact handgun will probably become your primary tool in an incident.
Most people don’t practice as much with their smaller guns as they do larger ones. Pocketable pistols are usually both ego challenging and uncomfortable to shoot. Nonetheless, some familiarization is a good idea.
The CCW Practical Exercise from Switzerland is short and uncomplicated familiarization drill. The Swiss are a very practical people.
All shooting is done wearing a concealment garment with a holstered weapon.
- 2 shots at 7 meters in 4 seconds. 3 times.
- 2 shots at 5 meters in 3.5 seconds. 3 times
- 2 shots at 3 meters in 3.0 seconds. 3 times.
18 rounds total. 14 hits required to pass. The hit area (dark area) of their target is roughly equivalent to the IDPA -1 zone. Hits on the silhouette outside the hit area don’t count. They penalize 1 hit for any impacts outside the silhouette.
If you decide to pocket carry, it’s worth doing at least a short tuneup with your pocket pistol. A dry practice session for your draw is a must. A short live fire session to get the lint out of your gun and be sure it works is also in order.
P-Press the Trigger Smoothly
My friend and colleague Greg Ellifritz kindly mentioned this post in his Weekly Knowledge Dump https://www.activeresponsetraining.net/weekend-knowledge-dump-december-1-2023 and it is worth repeating.
https://thetacticalprofessor.net/2018/11/16/press-the-trigger-smoothly/
Los Angeles Citizen’s CCW Taken Away
L.A. homeowner who fired on armed robbers has concealed carry permit suspended
https://news.yahoo.com/l-homeowner-fired-armed-robbers-055345708.html
It’s as plain as the nose on your face that this is retaliation. For what, you may ask?
Embarrassing the authorities on public media. Just that simple. His incident demonstrated that he was capable of protecting himself and his family at the moment of crisis and the authorities were not. By talking to the media, i.e., the local news and Colion Noir, he rubbed that fact in the faces of the Law Enforcement Agencies responsible for his and his family’s protection.
One of the benefits of belonging to a self-defense legal organization such as the Armed Citizens’ Legal Defense Network https://armedcitizensnetwork.org/ is getting to talk to someone about the incident in a confidential manner. Regardless of what organization or attorney you contact, they will undoubtedly advise against giving statements to the media. They are going to tell you to not make public statements.
After any such incident, it’s a natural desire to want to talk about it to decompress. Doing so is probably emotionally healthy. What we want to do is accomplish our decompression in a format that won’t hurt us. Talking to a lawyer is a non-harmful format. Talking to the media, even if they are neutral or well-intentioned, is fraught with hazard.
Couching your criticism with comments like “the LAPD is understaffed” or the like is equivalent to “Bless their hearts.” Then saying you’ve hired a private detective to investigate, which is tantamount to saying the authorities are incompetent, is only throwing more fuel on the fire of their future discontent. And please don’t publicly say that the investigation was sloppy, even if that’s true. NO BENEFIT. That’s just venting. Vent to your attorney not the local news.
As we can see in this incident, the authorities are not going to take kindly to a gunowner publicly proclaiming that it was the Second Amendment and not the authorities that protected them. In States that only issue Licenses To Carry because of Bruen, they’re going to look for some way to get even. Law Enforcement administrators in those States are not your friends. Don’t poke them in the eye by publicly exposing their inability to protect you.
Having to interact with the authorities after an incident is a Negative Outcome.
In its statement to KTLA, the sheriff’s department did say that Ricci’s CCW may immediately be reinstated as long as he has followed all the required policies, such as “proper notifications” and “use of [a] properly documented weapon.”
The Sheriff’s Office’s definition of “immediately” may be somewhat different than ours. Having to jump through a bunch of bureaucratic hoops to reinstate your Right to protect yourself is an undesirable interaction. Don’t put yourself in that situation, regardless of how righteous your incident was. In this case, his attackers are still out there and I wish he could carry his piece.
Calling the Shot
#Fridayfundamentals
Last week, I shot the IDPA Match at my gun club. Oddly enough, the shot I was happiest with the whole day was one I missed.
The lighting in one bay illuminated the smoke and cloudiness of each shot during the shooting. This added to the difficulty of transitioning between targets and immediately establishing a sight picture.
When I transitioned to the far left target, my view was still obscured by the smoke from the previous shot.
But at the moment the shot fired, the smoke had cleared and I had a decent view of my sight picture in relation to the target. I called it low and moved on.
When the targets were scored, sure enough there it was, low in the -3 Zone.
Calling that shot correctly during a challenging stage was the single best aspect of the match to me. It occurred to me later that in competition we only fire one, two, or three shots per target. Because of that, we have the opportunity to evaluate our shot calling for most of our shots. It’s an advantage competitive shooting has that never occurred to me before.
Shot calling with iron sights is an important skill to work on. When you can do it, it means you’re seeing your sight alignment and its relation to the target at the moment of the shot. That is sight picture in the moment and leads to good marksmanship.
Gunsite Glock Service Pistol
I find this development entertaining beyond measure.
A Commander style 9mm Glock with Optical sight and various other enhancements specified by Gunsite instructors.
The question in my mind is whether Jeff Cooper would have embraced this concept or viewed it as a “Rooney Gun.”
But as a lady was quoted in this article about Jews taking up arms in response to anti-Semitism:
“I’ve seen the way the world is changing,” she explained. “I need to change with the world.”
I hope her training includes some commentary about Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make.
https://store.payloadz.com/details/2617872-ebooks-true-crime-serious-mistakes-gunowners-make.html
Fuddzilla
#throwbackthursday
Just missed Halloween.
I’m not wearing sweatpants, though.
I will be at TacCon next year. My topic is “Off-duty Shootouts of the LAPD.”
Empty Chamber Carry – II
#fridayfundamentals
As mentioned last week, the discussions of Empty Chamber Carry rarely include any commentary about what to do after the pistol is loaded during an incident. A simplistic explanation of what the person will do often reduces to this.
“If I don’t have to shoot, I’ll immediately download the chamber when I get back to my car.”
There are several contextual issues with this.
- The car may be some distance away. Is the person going to walk to the car with gun in hand? Or are they going to holster a loaded pistol, something that they’re not used to doing, before they walk to the car?
- Once they reach the car, are they going to unload outside or inside the car?
- What procedure will be used to unload the pistol? Doing it standing outside the car? If so, is the pistol pointing at the car or away from the car? If the idea is to unload after entering the car, is the pistol in hand when getting in, placed on the seat before entering, or holstered?
- What direction is the pistol pointed inside the car during the unload process? There is no direction inside the car that doesn’t violate Rule #2 “Never point your pistol at anything you’re not prepared to destroy.” However, pointing it at yourself is the worst possible direction.
- Has the person ever practiced their unloading procedure with dummy ammunition?
If the incident occurs while the defender is in the car, the situation becomes even more complicated. The February 2022 Armed Citizen page
of the official NRA publications contains this incident in which a woman foiled a carjacking attempt. https://www.americas1stfreedom.org/content/the-armed-citizen-january-24-2022/
Woman With Concealed Carry License Fires At Would-Be Carjackers
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/ccw-holder-fires-gun-attempted-carjacker-roseland/
“I had just come out of the bank and was sitting in my car about to lock my door to pull off [and] leave, and he opened my door and put a gun in my face”
In a situation like this, both loading the gun and later unloading it come into play. Complicating the issue is that ‘workspace’ behind the steering wheel of a car is extremely limited.
If she hadn’t fired at the carjacker and had carried Empty Chamber, she would have then had to unload her pistol. However, she fired and then went for help.
“She reversed her Nissan Versa, and pulled up right outside the Chase Bank – then ran inside for help.”
If there was no malfunction, the chamber was now loaded. She then chose to go to a place of safety, the bank she just left. Obviously, running into a bank with a gun in hand wouldn’t be a great idea. Her choices at that point were:
- Holster the loaded gun or put it back in her purse. Her carry method wasn’t specified so it’s possible she just leaves the gun in the car in general. In that case, she would only have options 3 or 4.
- Unload the gun while sitting in the car, secure it somewhere on her person, and then go into the bank.
- Run into the bank and leave the gun in the car loaded.
- Unload the gun, leave it in the car, and run into the bank.
For those who choose to carry with an Empty Chamber, practice at gun manipulation is vital. Dummy rounds are a very useful training aid and every gunowner should have some. Empty Chamber carriers in particular should use them regularly to practice loading and unloading under realistic conditions.
Empty Chamber Carry – I
https://thetacticalprofessor.net/2023/10/13/empty-chamber-carry-i/
tacticalprofessor 
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